The Book Thief

By Markus ZusakHistorical Fiction

"It kills me sometimes, how people die." -Death

The Grave Digger's Handbook. The first book Liesel Meminger ever stole. The first book she ever read. The book that started it all. Liesel Meminger's life is flipped upside down in just a matter of days. Her brother dies, she steals a book and her mother leaves her with two complete strangers who turn out to be her foster parents. From watschens from Rosa to rolling cigarettes with Hans, Liesel's journey hasn't even begun. Not when she has to do something that might cost her and her foster family's life; hiding a Jew. What's so bad about that, you say? Well I guess your going to have to read and find out. And me? Well, I'm not exactly in this book, but then again, I'm everywhere. You can call me death.

Setting

The Book Thief takes place in Munich, Germany between the years 1939 and 1943.

Characters

Liesel Meminger

Rudy Steiner

Max Vadenburg

Hans Hubermann

Rosa Hubermann

Death

Plot

The Book Thief's main character is Liesel Meminger and takes place in Nazi Germany. While at her brothers funeral she encounters a book buried in the snow and takes it, which is her first act of book thievery. Soon after, she is sent to live with a foster family. When she first meets her foster family she doesn't know how to read but soon is able to with the help of her foster father, Hans Hubermann.

I would recommend this book because it is passionate and educational at the same time; it makes you want to keep reading it. I like this book because all throughout the book he uses German phrases and words and he doesn't always tell you what they mean so you have to use what you've read so far to determine what it means. I would recommend this book to people who like reading about history or to people who like historical books that use fictional characters.

Conflict

Jews vs. Hitler

Hans vs. Hans Junior

Rosa vs. Liesel

Rosa vs. Hans

Hans vs. Hitler

Max vs. Hitler

Connections

Text to World: The events throughout the book take place in Nazi Germany when Hitler rose to power, and details throughout the book show things that have really happened; the holocaust, book burnings, war, Jews going into hiding. Text to Self: Since the book is very historically themed I can make an easy connection to it and what we learned about the Holocaust and World War II in my social studies class.

Themes

One theme would be always have courage. Most of the characters portray courage; it took courage for the Hubermanns to take in Max even though they knew they could be risking their lives, it even took courage for Max to travel to the Hubermanns house in the first place knowing that they might not even welcome him.

Markus Zusak

Markus Zusak is an Australian writer and New York Times Bestseller who has also written the stories I Am the Messenger, Fighting Ruben Wolfe, Getting the Girl and The Book Thief.